The project of the Institute of Balkan Studies and Centre of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences "The Vocabulary of Constantine of Preslav's Uchitel'noe evangelie ('Didactic Gospel'): Old Bulgarian-Greek and Greek-Old Bulgarian Word Indices" (Contract No. № КП-06-Н50/2), led by Prof. Lora Taseva, will be presented during Sofia Science Festival.

We are looking forward to seeing you on May 12, 2023 (Friday) from 15h00 to 16h30 at the Bulgarian National Science Fund stand on level 0 in Sofia Tech Park, John Atanasov building.

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On May 16, 2023 (Tuesday) at 16h00 in the New Bulgarian University, building I, floor 4, the exhibition Egyptian Cults on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast will be opened. The exhibition is organized by the Bulgarian Institute of Egyptology and the Institute of Balkan Studies and Alexander Fol Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

The monuments presented in the exhibition originate from the ancient cities located on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast: Apollonia Pontica (Sozopol), Messambria (Nessebar), Anhialo (Pomorie), Odessos (Varna) and Dionysopolis (Balchik). They are divided into five sections according to their type: AMULETS, EPIGRAPHIC MONUMENTS, TERRACOTTA, BRONZE, NUMISMATICS. They are selected to illustrate the penetration of Egyptian cults into Ancient Thrace. Due to the communicative location of these cities, this penetration first took place here probably as early as the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The earliest known monuments with Egyptian influence are the amulets found in the Greek colonies of Apollonia Pontica (Sozopol) and Mesambria (Nessebar).

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The Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IBSCT-BAS) is pleased to invite you to the public lecture of Assist. Prof. Dr. Arch. Aneta Vasileva and Assist. Prof. Dr. Arch. Emilia Kaleva (University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy) New architectural heritage.

The event is organised under the initiative Every Second Tuesday and will be held on May 16, 2023 (Tuesday) at 17:00 at the IBSCT-BAS (Moskovska Street No. 45).

We are looking forward to welcoming you!

On May 9, 2023 at 18h30, the Croatian poets Sanja Lovrenčić and Maja Ručević will be presented at the Literary Club of the Sofia City Library with the participation of the poet Ivan Herceg, who is a guest of the House of Literature and Translation in May. Bulgarian poets will also participate in the event, and two of them - Petar Chuhov and Ivan Hristov - will have their own musical performances.

Sanja Lovrenčić and Maja Ručević are guests of the Conversations of Literature and the Peninsula project of the Institute of Balkan Studies and Prof. Alexander Fol Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in the beginning of May 2023. Their visit and events are carried out with the assistance of the European literary network Traduki, IBSCT-BAS, DA Poetry Publishing House and the Sofia City Library.

After their presentation in the Sofia City Library on May 9, 2023 on May 10, 2023 at 16h30, the Croatian poets will be guests of the students and teachers of the Serbian and Croatian language and literature major at the Faculty of Slavic Philology of Sofia University.

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The Institute of Balkan Studies and Centre of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences A. Yu Krymsky Institute of Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University and Kharkiv State Academy of Culture organize an international scholarly conference Modern and contemporary culture: Research, heritage protection, socialization. It will be held on November 23 and 24, 2023 online via Zoom. The working languages are Bulgarian, Ukrainian and English.

Please submit your paper proposal until October 23, 2023 at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The proposal must include topic of the paper (in Bulgarian and English or in Ukrainian and English) and an abstract (up to 300 words).

Approved applications will be announced by November 1, 2023.

The conference proceedings will be published in a refereed edition after double anonymous review.

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On April 24, 2023, at the UNESCO House in Paris the photo documentary exhibition Le cœur de la Bulgarie. Exposition du monastère de Rila pour l'UNESCO / The Heart of Bulgaria. Rila Monastery Exhibition for UNESCO was opened. The exhibition is prepared by a team of the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IBSCT-BAS) and is supported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science under the National Scientific Programme "Bulgarian Studies". The occasion was the 40th anniversary of the inscription of the Rila Monastery in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The official opening of the exhibition was attended by Mrs. Zornitza Grekova, Deputy Permanent Delegate of Bulgaria to UNESCO, Prof. Dr. Roumiana Il. Preshlenova, Director of the IBSCT-BAS and Assist. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Milanova, academic coordinator of the IBSCT-BAS. With the blessing of Bishop Evlogius of Adrianople, Abbot of the Rila Monastery, the Monastery was represented by Archpriest Ivan Karageorgiev - a priest from the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Municipality "Saint Patriarch Euthymius of Tarnovo" in Paris. The guest of honor at the event was Mr. Ernesto Ottone, Assistant Director-General for Culture of UNESCO, who welcomed the initiative and congratulated Bulgaria for its effective contribution to the overall work of UNESCO. Guests at the opening were representatives of the diplomatic corps in Paris, employees of the UNESCO Secretariat and the World Heritage Center, citizens and guests of the French capital.

The exhibition is organized under the patronage of the National Commission of the Republic of Bulgaria for UNESCO with the courtesy of the Rila Monastery, the Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Bulgaria to UNESCO, and the State Cultural Institute at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria.

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On April 25, 2023, Prof. Yura Konstantinova delivered the 7th Gunnar Herring lecture, organized by the Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Vienna. Prof. Nenad Stefanov from the Humboldt University in Berlin was the respondent of the lecture, dedicated to the Bulgarian ideas about Greece and the Greeks. The event, which took place in the auditorium of the archive of the University of Vienna, was attended by members of the academic community, representatives of the embassies of Bulgaria and Greece in Austria, students and citizens.

The Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IBSCT-BAS) is pleased to invite you to the lecture of Assoc. Prof. Simeon Simeonov, PhD The Balkan odyssey of Francisco de Miranda and the birth of the idea of Latin American independence. The event is organized in pursuance to Art. 18 (17) of the Annex to the Regulations of the Scientific Council of the IBSCT-BAS regarding terms and conditions for acquiring scientific degrees and for holding academic positions.

The lecture will be held on May 2, 2023 (Tuesday) at 16:00 at the IBSCT-BAS (Moskovska Street No. 45).

We are looking forward to welcoming you!

From April 18 to 20, 2023, the Third National Annual Scholarly Conference of the Center for Excellence "Heritage BG" was held in hall 19 of the Prince's Palace. Seven researchers from the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Thracology participated in the event. The conference was opened by Prof. Alexandre Kostov, Dr. habil., Corresponding Member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences who deliver a report entitled "Towards the modernization of health system in the Balkans at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century: Outpatient medical care". Six more presentations of participants in the "Unknown Balkans" project treated new and poorly researched scholarly issues. Those reports were delivered by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zlatomira Gerdzhikova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Vesela Atanasova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Adriana Serbova, Assist. Prof. Dr. Samuil Kamburov, Assist. Prof. Dr. Ivaylo Nachev, and Eli Filipova, PhD student. All papers were followed by interesting and fruitful discussions.

More about the reports is available here.

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On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the inscription of the Rila Monastery in the UNESCO World Heritage List, from April 21 to 27, 2023, the photo documentary exhibition Le cœur de la Bulgarie. Exposition du monastère de Rila pour l'UNESCO / The Heart of Bulgaria. Rila Monastery Exhibition for UNESCO will be presented at the UNESCO House in Paris. The exhibition is prepared by a team of the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and is supported by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science under the National Scientific Programme "Bulgarian Studies".

The exhibition is organized under the patronage of the National Commission of the Republic of Bulgaria for UNESCO with the courtesy of the Rila Monastery, the Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Bulgaria to UNESCO, and the State Cultural Institute at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria.

The official opening will take place on April 24, 2023 (Monday) at 12.30 at the UNESCO House in Paris (7 place de Fontenoy, 75007 Paris).

We are looking forward to welcoming you.

The scholarly forum is organized by the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences under the project "The Vocabulary of Constantine of Preslav's Uchitel'noe evangelie ('Didactic Gospel'): Old Bulgarian-Greek and Greek-Old Bulgarian Word Indices", funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund (agreement No. KP-06-H50/2). Partner in this event is the Regional History Museum - Sofia.

35 prominent scholars from Bulgaria, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and the Czech Republic will participate, as well as young researchers from Bulgaria, Austria and Croatia.

The conference program is available on the project website: https://uchitelnoevangelie.eu/sabitiya/

The official opening of the conference is on April 25, 2023 at 17h00 at Hall 1 of the Serdika Ancient Cultural and Communication Complex.

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The purpose of this conference is to emphasize the problem of “otherness” in the context of Church history. In the Bible, the Saviour defines two groups, those “blessed by My Father”, who will inherit the Kingdom prepared for them “since the creation of the world” (Matt. 25: 34-40), and the “cursed”, who will be sent to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25: 41-46). The Lord reveals himself only to “the pure in heart” (Matt. 5:8).
Besides the identification of otherness, the Church prescribes the recipe for the birth of the “new” man: repentance. According to the ecclesiastic philosophers, the difference between righteous and sinners (between “us” and “them”) has been established according to the divine design of Creation.

The aim of this conference is to bring together researchers with common interests in a discussion on several leading questions: where are the categories “us” and “them” situated; who are the “others”; how is their image constructed.

The international conference is open to specialists from different fields: historians, culturologists, theologians, art historians, archivists, philologists, philosophers, etc. The conference will be held in Sofia (Bulgaria) on 8-9 November 2023. Online participation will be very welcomed.

The main topics are the following:

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